Cholera, an infection that is commonly found in central Africa, has affected thousands of millions of people every year, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Cholera is an acute diarrheal disease that is caused by the strains of a bacterium called Vibrio cholerae. V. cholerae is a pathogen that colonizes the small intestine and causes symptoms such as watery diarrhea and vomiting. If left untreated, people will suffer from severe dehydration and leads to death within hours.

During March 2015, there were more than 10 students hospitalized after consuming cooked cassava tuber, which is a kind of African salad in Abakaliki, the capital of Ebonyi in Nigeria. They suffered from stooling right after the meal and went to hospital as the condition became worsen.

After investigation, they confirmed that this is a case of cholera, and the food was contaminated by flies, the director of Rural health, Ministry of Health, Dr. Christian Achi explained.

Cassava is a type of plant that is widely eaten as staple food in developing countries. That means many people eat it in a daily basis and if it is infected by V. cholerae, this can cause a huge outbreak of cholera in Africa. Therefore, cooking food thoroughly and maintain hygiene is very important in these areas to prevent any disease outbreak.

Many of us think that keeping our equipment clean and fully cook food are the essential things that we should do and are enough to prevent any disease. We never thought of flies to be the transmission route of bacteria. Flies carry bacteria from contaminated food to other non-contaminated food and cause people to be infected. Therefore, keeping the environment clean to avoid any insects from contacting food is also a key to preventing cholera.

According to the data provided by WHO, almost 45% of cholera cases were reported from Africa in 2013. Although the number of reported cases has already decreased compare to previous years, the reason why there are still more than ten thousand reported cases this year is probably due to flooding in Africa. This is because another way cholera contaminate food other than flies is through water. Flooding causes all the food soaked in dirty water and thus be contaminated by V. cholerae very easily. Also, due to all kinds of economical situations and limited water resources, people will drink water without processing such as boiling or filtering. As a result, cholera is widely spread in these areas where there is inadequate environmental management.

The method people use to treat cholera is by oral rehydration salts (ORS), a treatment that is indicated by WHO. Severe diarrhea will leads to dehydration so ORS is a very effective and efficient way on rehydrating people. Anitibiotics are also used to shorten diarrhea duration. To control the outbreak of cholera due to weather such as raining season, they will introduce cholera vaccines to people. The following video shows the situations people are facing in Africa and how they are treating cholera using vaccination. In order to prevent cholera outbreak, improving sanitation and access of safe drinking water are the keys, which are also indicated on the video. We shall not neglect the importance of improving environmental conditions such as household hygiene, water filtration, development of water pipe system by treating disinfectants, etc. These strategies can upgrade their living conditions and minimize the chance of getting infected.

Such an interesting article! It is scary that even though the cooking utensils may be clean, the food can still be contaminated with the Vibrio bacteria and cause a severe diarrheal infection in the people that consume that contaminated food. Just like it is stated in the previous article about Cryptosporidium, it is very important to treat the water to make it potable in places where you cannot be sure if that water is safe, such as locations affected by flooding, to avoid being infected. Unfortunately, in some countries in Africa many people does not have access to potable water, so the local health authorities should make it a priority to provide drinkable water to prevent cholera outbreaks.

Reading this reminds me of how grateful I should be to live in a place where we have access to clean water all of the time. It’s silly how so many people take water for granted and don’t realize that people actually die from not having clean water almost every single day. It takes some as simple as teaching people the importance of boiling/sanitizing water before using it to save a life, yet deaths still occur. This is such a frustrating situation.

Numbers do matter! Only Africa alone contributed 45% of Cholera cases. Contaminated water and food are some direct concerns, but these might also indirectly affect the population as well. Environments that are insanitary can be an ideal place for the breeding of flies and pests that can propagate illnesses. Furthermore contamination of water can only make matters worse when people consume it for rehydration. Using this water for irrigation of produces poses a concern. It is great to know that effort has been made to provide the area with ORS and that the problem of contamination has been recognized.

It’s crazy how much cholera is easily spread throughout to cause such an epidemic. Vancouver luckily does have one of the cleanest water supplies in the world – there are people I know who do not hesitate to drink from the tap (myself included). As Silvia said, we are definitely lucky. Sadly it does not seem like many places in Africa have an understanding about why CLEAN water is so important. Many many times do I hear stories about children that just grab water wherever they see it just so that they can have some water to drink. I think that it is very important that the government/ministry of health realizes that this is such an issue and that they make efforts to get education out there for the remote villages. That way, they can learn about HOW to properly sanitize food/water and how to prevent diseases, and why it is so important to do so.